Former Consultant for Bernie Sanders Arrested After Planting Weapons in a Jail

50-year-old Alex Friedmann, former consultant for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, was arrested after allegedly planting loaded weapons and ammunition inside a Tennessee corrections facility that was under construction. According to authorities, this act was an attempt to carry out a future jailbreak.

The Daily Mail reported that he was first arrested on January 4 and charged with burglary after he was caught in Downtown Nashville Detention Center. “Footage allegedly shows him and three accomplices dressed as construction workers, and hiding guns and more escape tools in the jail,” said the report.

Friedmann was not an inmate but was allegedly plotting to help prisoners escape when the facility opened. He was arrested on one count of felony vandalism, but according to Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, the allegations are far beyond that.

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Following Friedmann’s arrest, the opening of the Nashville detention center was indefinitely postponed. It was originally scheduled for April. “Throughout the last several weeks it was discovered that Mr. Friedmann, over many months, had developed and implemented an extremely deliberate – and in my opinion evil – plan,” Hall said during a press conference. “Understand, this plan went far beyond vandalism. Ultimately it included planting various tools, weapons, security equipment throughout this facility. All designed to assist in a massive escape plan.”

“What disturbed me most is not that this was about an escape. It was also about loss of life,” he added.

According to Fox News, “Friedmann worked with the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as one of several consultants who educated him on criminal justice issues. It resulted in Sanders introducing a bill aimed at eliminating private prisons. Friedmann told The Atlantic in 2015 that the bill did not go far enough to achieve that goal.”

“It appears to be more for political purposes than to actually address the many problems in our criminal justice system,” he told the publication. When Fox News requested for comment, Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign did not immediately respond.